Negotiating the Public Sphere through Private Correspondence: A Woman’s Letters of Liberty in Eighteenth-Century Germany

Abstract

The pivotal role played by letters in eighteenth-century German literary, cultural and everyday life has long been recognised. In contrast to earlier times, many of the letters written in the eighteenth century were composed by women, and their correspondence provides modern scholars with a rich source of information abour the process of communication in the intimate, private and public spheres. The linited correspondence of Charlotte von Hezel, the first woman in Germany to edit a periodical under her own name, is of particular interest because it offers one of the few examaples of a woman corresponding with men for professional, not personal reasons. In addition, Hezel, not her male correspondents, represents the voice of authority within the area of activity being discussed: the publication of her magazine. Hezel’s self-assurance is remarkable for a German woman of the time, and her letters demonstrate a liberating process of communication that allowed individuals hingered by gender, educational background or social status to debate contemporary issues and exchange serviced as they negotiated their entry into the public sphere.